


But these lands are wild

by Jenwryn



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Domestic, Future Fic, HP: EWE, M/M, Post - Deathly Hallows, Restlessness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-21
Updated: 2011-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-21 15:04:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry could tell you exactly when it started, if you asked him. He could, but he wouldn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But these lands are wild

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tehfanglyfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tehfanglyfish/gifts).



> Sweetheart, this wasn't what I'd planned on writing you. ♥;

The air is thick with the scent of orchids, heavy and too much against Harry’s tongue. He stalks through, past potions and poultices, past cauldrons and a malcontent toad, and flicks the latch on the shutters, letting in first the white light of winter, then the brittle chill of fresh air.

“Potter.” It’s almost a hiss. Practically a sigh.

Positively Severus Snape.

Harry ignores him, propping a jar of something noxious-looking beneath the window pane, to keep it open, and turns to survey the room.

It looks like a bomb – a perversely meticulous, method-in-my-madness-orderly bomb – has hit what used to be the master bedroom of a perfectly ordinary London flat. ‘Used to’ is the correct phraseology, too, seeing as it now better resembles something that might have pushed from the womb of Hogwarts. And that’s being kind. Knockturn Alley, all things considered, would probably be a more realistic candidate and Harry, with a few years of the world beneath his belt, would know.

Besides, a master bedroom requires a bed, and Harry would also be the man to know that there isn’t one. Hermione, who is the only other person Snape will tolerate this side of the front door – actually, possibly the _only_ person Snape will tolerate, seeing as Harry isn’t really sure that toleration fits anywhere within his considerably more complicated relationship with the wizard – has mentioned something about their once-professor sleeping with his head propped on his arms at the kitchen table.

Harry finds it all very uncivilised.

And he’s used to sleeping in weirder places.

“Harry,” Snape says. This time, the tone is more a familiar why-do-I-put-up-with-you.

Harry throws him a grin. “Don’t suppose you have anything to eat around here?”

When Snape huffs, Harry gets out his phone and orders Chinese.

*

Harry could tell you exactly when it started, if you asked him. He could, but he wouldn’t. He’s learnt lessons about unearned honesty, about rumours and truth, and about what, exactly, the general public thinks about him doing anything but fighting evil and helping someone with curved hips pop out red-haired babies. Actually, Harry fully understands their sentiments about babies – he’s always wanted more and more family, is greedy for it – but, anyway; he’s learnt to keep his mouth shut.

Severus’s wrists are fine, bones rounded and skin sharp, beneath the loose cuffs of his dark jumper.

He uses chopsticks as if he were born to them.

Harry sticks to a fork.

*

“So how was Paraguay,” Snape says.

Bubbles glisten on dishes. Harry is looking at wrists again, at arms, at sleeves pulled up to elbows – sleeves rolled inwards, rather than out, to stop them slipping back down – at dark ink and at pale skin. Harry has ink there himself, now, though the image depicted is considerably different.

“Fine,” Harry answers. Waits, to see if more is required. Adds, “Ron managed to get himself thrown in gaol for a few nights.”

Snape laughs at that, says it explains why Hermione’s been banging saucepans when she visits.

The teatowel is warm in Harry’s hands, from hanging over the radiator. Snape won’t have a dishwasher, and nor does he consider magic for menial tasks seemly, but Harry doesn’t mind. He enjoys this ritual. Thinks, sometimes, that housework in this flat is the universe’s way of making up for the housework of his childhood.

He wonders whether the same is true for Snape, but he never asks.

*

They sit before something on the television, but Snape has little interest and Harry has none. Harry plays with slender fingers, touching wrist bones and knuckles, and placing open-mouthed kisses against a palm. He sees Severus’s gaze move to Harry’s rucksack by the door, dusty and worn, and he makes a mental note to unpack it properly this time – what seems like laziness to him is read as something different by Snape.

“How long,” says Snape.

“Is a piece of string,” answers Harry, wry and dry and gentle.

Severus snorts, but Harry sees, much later, the way his unpacked toothbrush, in the cup beside Severus’s, beneath the old mirror in the washroom, is smiled at slowly.

*

The bathtub is lined with jars, and there are bubbles again. Knees now, too.

Severus has always liked Harry’s knees.

*

The owl comes in the morning, tapping at a window. Hermione, wanting to see that Harry has arrived alive and well. Harry has no idea how she keeps up with his comings and goings, but supposes that this one had been simple enough, what with her husband having tagged along with him. Usually Harry travels with Luna, since their interests align, and since Lu is good for quiet, and for no-questions-asked, and for understanding the restlessness that moulds him with unforgiving hands, and most of all for the fact that Severus can almost tolerate her. Can, at the very least, trust her, certainly in the ways that matter most.

This time, with Ron, had been an exception. An apology, from both Harry and from Ron, really.

For not having trusted Ron to not act like a fool.

For Ron having acted like a fool.

For the both of them having taken this long to forget it.

Hermione had known forever, of course. For longer than any of them, perhaps. But then, Hermione always had been the most liberal-minded of the lot.

Severus throws a sock at the owl, when it finds its way through the open workroom-bedroom window and makes itself at home on a hat hook. Severus tells it exactly what he thinks of its meddlesome witch of a mistress.

Harry’s phone beeps and Hermione’s text declares Snape a pretentious, pompous dick.

Harry is glad they get on as marvellously as they do.

*

The living room is a different kind of muddle. It’s Snape’s things, and it’s Harry’s things as well. Magical and Muggle. Quidditch and chemistry. Gifts, from this corner of the map and that. And books, rows and rows and shelves and shelves of books. A dust-free globe in a corner, too, where Harry knows he could seek out the prints of Snape’s fingers tracing out wherever it is that Harry has gone, one week to the next.

Severus never looks at the globe when Harry is home.

Would never even admit to owning it.

*

The linen press has always been easy to magic, and Harry hadn’t noticed the irony until Severus had finally pointed it out, some years back: the Boy Who Lived, back in a bed beneath the stairs. Harry snorts whenever he thinks of it; rolls his eyes as he pulls the door closed behind them. This cupboard is a good kind of claustrophobic. It makes him think not of his own past, but of the books he’s heard Hermione read to her children – magical cupboards replete with lands and wonder.

In his mind, as he slips down amongst blankets, he says all manner of sentimental things while, outwardly, he says nothing at all; simply stretches himself out beside Severus, and lets his hands promise for him.

*

The leaves are full and green, when Harry pulls his empty rucksack from the corner with the globe. The air is soft and warm warm, as he lets the magic of the linen press fall away.

Snape says, “I hear Lovegood’s been talking about finding Lightening Birds in Zimbabwe.”

Harry leans in to him. Puts his lips close. Puts his touch close. Puts his eyes closest of all. He’s only even conscious of them, these days, when they’re being mirrored back by Severus’s. Only ever conscious of anything, when it’s being mirrored back by Severus.

Harry lets pack sit heavy against his back, lets the city fall from his mind, and keeps only that reflection, tucked somewhere beneath his ribs.

“That's the plan.”

*

Severus pulls the jar from beneath the window pane, and lets the room fog thick with potions.

He’ll be home soon enough.


End file.
